Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. As she said, any of the Members here from Waterford could have written that response. The Minister, Deputy Donnelly, was down with us relatively recently when he opened the state-of-the-art palliative care facility on the University Hospital Waterford site. The Minister gave a commitment then that in a short frame of time we were going to move to a seven day a week service from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Everybody in Waterford and everybody in the south east has a heart story and has the friend who just about made it within the operating hours or the person who did not. It became a mantra in Waterford among the campaigners that time is muscle, and especially when referring to the stenting service and that intervention capacity, which we thankfully now have available in both of the cath labs. It is really not acceptable in this day and age that a cardiac care patient at a weekend will have to take that journey to Cork when we know they would lose all of that functional capacity. Will the Minister of State outline what steps we need to take in order to get to that seven day service from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., which is at least a stepping stone to the 24-7 service that we all want.

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